Anthopoulos Talks Offseason Plans

Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos was the center of attention at last year's GM Meetings. The then-rookie GM had the winter's most coveted player on his roster: Roy Halladay. The Halladay trade is history, but Anthopoulos has the entire offseason ahead to contemplate more deals. Here's what he told MLBTR about Toronto's offseason plans:

Anthopoulos declined to discuss specifics, but said the Blue Jays have kept in touch with all their free agents. That includes Kevin Gregg, whose option Toronto declined earlier in the month.

The Blue Jays are keeping their options open when it comes to ranked free agents. Even though signing a Type A free agent before next Tuesday would mean surrendering a draft pick, Anthopoulos says the Blue Jays would not hesitate to sign a Type A player this week if the deal is right. Though the Blue Jays may simply be keeping their options open, the news will interest the Toronto fans who are wondering about Type A free agent Manny Ramirez. It seems unlikely that the Blue Jays would sign a Type A free agent before the deadline to offer arbitration, since the organization appears to value draft picks highly, but Anthopoulos says he'll consider it. Toronto's first round pick (21st overall) is not protected.

As for potential surprises, Anthopoulos says it's too early to predict whether they'll come via trade or free agency since so much of the offseason lies ahead.

That’s the thing – if you sign Manny before the next Tuesday, then since they didn’t “get the chance” to offer him arbitration, in the process it’s assume that they would have, and you have to surrender the pick. Of course they won’t offer it, so as long as they wait until then to complete the signing they’ll be fine.

Next Halloween I’m going as Alex Anthopoulos. When people ask what I’m dressed as I’ll tell them that I might be dressed as a particular baseball personality, but I’d decline to go into specifics and I want to keep my options open as to what I’m dressed as. I’d also mention that if the costume were right, I’d consider being that too as long as it were a fit for the organization.

Whats the advantage to signing them this week as opposed to next ? I really don’t see any free agents giving a team a discount before the deadline to offer arbitration. Especially for someone like Manny who has no chance of being offered Arb

It depends on who you are signing. If you can sign someone like Lee or Crawford then it’s an advantage because it saves you all the time and you can relax a bit but it’s not an advantage if you sign a guy that is not going to be offered arbitration (for type A) in this case Manny, then it’s a massive disadvantage and if Manny signing were to happen, it would happen after whatever the date is for arbitration.